Battle of Seongchun

The Battle of Seongchun (1545) was the climactic battle of Go Tamemitsu's failed rebellion against the rule of King Yi Injong of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. Lee Gwang Sik led a Joseon government army against rebels in the Seongchun-dohobu region in present-day North Korea and crushed them, winning a great victory that ended the unrest in the region.

Prelude
The Joseon dynasty was established in 1392, and it replaced the Goguryeo dynasty. The rulers of Joseon had to deal with the divisions in Korea that had previously led to the Three Kingdoms of Korea and the many civil conflicts on the peninsula, and Yi Injong inherited a peninsula that was on the brink of all-out rebellion. In 1545, Go Tamemitsu emerged as teh leader of a peasant rebellion against high taxes in the Seongchun-dohobu region of present-day North Korea, just to the south of Pyongyang. The Joseon army of Lee Gwang Sik, 1,848-strong, was deployed to crush the 1,992-strong rebel army just to the northeast of Seongchun. The ensuing battle took place on a plain.

Battle
The Joseon army consisted mostly of pikemen and archers, but Lee Gwang Sik and his bodyguards and a unit of light cavalry gave the Joseon army more mobility. The rebel army was made up mostly of spearmen, with Go Tamemitsu leading a cavalry unit. Tamemitsu went on the offensive, attacking the Joseon army, which was deployed at the bottom of a hill. The Joseon light cavalry deployed to the right flank to harass the rebels as they charged, and the ensuing battle would see the Joseon archers at the front peel back so that the spearmen could defeat the rebel infantry. Tamemitsu barely escaped the rout, and much of his army was pursued and massacred. Seongchun was not the end of the rebellion, as Tamemitsu died in a futile assault on the city itself that left only a few Joseon guards left. However, it was the decisive victory that led to the end of the tax revolt, restoring order in the region.